The Blue Mile

by Kim Kelly

  ‘Here we are.’ Coralie emerges from the stockroom now, beribboned parcel in hand: the bottle of Lelong’s N which Mrs Bloxom has come in for.

  Not here for any of that now. Mrs Bloxom narrows her already narrow eyes at me. Her top lip quivers with her bile: ‘You little upstart.’

  ‘No.’ I stand straighter than I ever have, and decency stands beside me as I let go of decorum, let go entirely at this nasty, grasping dowager of moral decay: ‘You are the upstart, Mrs Bloxom. You criticise Lady Game? When was the last time you had the homeless of the Domain line up for leftovers at your back door? When was the last time you went down to the Happy Valley shanties to have tea and cake with barefoot children at La Perouse? Hm? When did you last visit a women’s prison to see what might be done to help and heal? For this is what Lady Game does for this city as a matter of course – these are the entries in her diary. If the likes of you shun her back to London, I shall go with her.’

  That last was perhaps a bridge too far, but the rest of it I heartily mean. Mrs Bloxom is lost to her outrage and I will not step away from this. Gwendolen Game is the closest thing we have to a saint in this city. An exemplary Lady, ceaselessly at work and concerned for others. Ceaselessly damn well impressive. While it’s her husband’s job merely to put on his feathered hat and ceremonial sword and appear at official openings, be the subject of hooray bunting and otherwise stroll the Domain with his dog saying good afternoon to the hoboes his wife fed earlier in the day. What must Lady Game think of our egalitarianism now? That we are all equally cruel and stupid and mean? She is too polite to say. I shall say it for her. ‘Alternatively, Mrs Bloxom, if you don’t like the way this nation is run, then you could always go Home yourself, couldn’t you?’

  That’s a skewering right to the bone for Mrs Bloxom: she doesn’t have any such thing as a home in London, and she well knows it. That’s the only reason she’s ever been after me for Warwick, so that she can pretend she’s connected. To Mother England. To a viscount. Any damn scrap of aristocratic flotsam will do. She has the senator husband with the knighthood, the son who will be PM, and she wants the Honourable daughter-in-law to make up the trifecta of confected self-importance. I seethe, most honourably: I hear the air suck in through my teeth and I am a breath away from demanding she leave my salon before I throw her out, and I don’t care if she takes every fat overpowdered witch in this city with her. Oh, but if I were a different girl I’d tell her the Hardys and all of Mosman think her Warwick is a confirmed bachelor, because rumour has it on good authority he’s a little more theatrical than a barrister ought to be, behind closed chambers doors – nudgy nudge, wink wink, have a banana.

  Mrs Bloxom points her finger at me, head witch that she is, and she warns: ‘The Premier will be dismissed. You mark my words, he will be dismissed.’

  I snort as she turns: as if Mrs Bloxom has any power to do any such thing. Parliament isn’t the Merrick Jazz Room: you can’t squeeze it out of business because it’s not to your taste. But my righteousness is already fading into fear. Damn. There goes Olivia Couture. I want to say: You’ll be sorry. Dowdy lump you were before I came along. I gave you your calf-length hem, those fox trims and sling-backs. If it weren’t for me you’d still be wearing Bourjois’ Ashes of Roses and a crepe chaff bag, like the common pile of phlergh you truly are.

  And she will never appreciate it, chérie. Let her go back to Bourjois.

  ‘Oh, Ollie,’ Coralie touches my hand, consoling, and I turn to her. She’s sixteen now, plumpness giving way to some gorgeous angles at her cheeks and jaw but the child remaining says we’re just two little girls here, playing dress-ups. Rolling Arabian eyes: ‘Who needs her?’

  ‘We do.’ I take the parcel of perfume from her and unwrap it. But I don’t put the bottle of N back in the cabinet. I unplink the stopper and dab a spot on my wrist, and inhale, to force the calm back into myself. It’s a crisp, dry scent, Lelong’s N: jasmine, magnolia and a hint of freshly chopped firewood. Forthright. I should grow up and grow out of Coty’s lolly-water Lily and start wearing N myself. Indeed from this moment I think I shall. So long as I can afford it.

  Stop that thought: Mrs Bloxom has no more say over what goes in my business than the Nationalists do in the business of the King. I say what goes.

  I say to Coralie: ‘Let’s start on the pattern for Liz Hardy’s engagement, hm?’

  ‘Yes, let’s.’ Coralie is all for that – it’s mostly her design, a little fishtail kick, a little Hollywood diamante sprinkle, and Liz will adore it. The Mosman set will adore it: must.

  ‘Clear the decks then and I’ll go down and get that Fuji for it now.’ Lush bolt of champagne that came in yesterday; we’ll need at least ten yards.

  Down to the Emporium I scoot against fears, and my footsteps clatter round the stairwell, echoing through the empty arcade. It’s three o’clock on a Thursday afternoon, and although it’s October and this month is always a little bit quiet, it’s too quiet. Even the grocery shop that’s taken over where Duke’s Men & Boys used to be looks empty. Even Mr Jabour is down on ordering and he’s sticking more with plains and standards. Something must be done to put money in the till, and urgently. Belt-tightening is not working; everything is only getting skinnier, except for the department stores, as Mr Jabour predicted. The state is broke; public servants unpaid. Are they meant to work for free? How can spending less on government solve that? Sack Mr Lang, and sack all the public servants, and then what? Have them work for the dole? Take the Child Endowment away and let babies starve? How will that generate money? How will that keep Eoghan in a job?

  How can the Fickle Witches of this world not see all this happening? Too busy closing their eyes on the lift down, counting their savings on the ever-diminishing cost of hired help. Never had so many servants, Deirdre, half a pound of peanuts each. And they call Premier Lang evil. He’s only asking for a reduction in the interest rate of some fraction of a percent, isn’t he? Peanuts. America has asked Britain for the same sort of consideration, and got it. Because it’s merely simple business sense, isn’t it? How is that wrong? Questions jumbling over questions. Why can’t the British bondholders damn well wait for their money? They can afford to. Why do so many in our government think paying this debt is more important than feeding a child? Don’t they care that people are suffering? Where is the compassion? Gone up in a puff of Commonwealth Bank cigar smoke, or rather trapped in the ruins of the Bank of New South Wales: Terribly sorry, Madam, your life savings appear to have been permanently misplaced. But what would I know about any of this myself? What’s the difference between the Gold Standard and the Goods Standard to me? Ten yards of your finest lamé. What is money anyway but an utterly fabricated squiggly wisp of magic-carpet fluff?

  Of which I know the basic principles well enough. No money in the till: no business. No nerve to stick to your guns: no business. Too much nerve: no business as you’ve just shot yourself in the head. Oh dear God. What have I done letting fly at Mrs Bloxom? Mother will be so pleased to hear of the salon’s demise: she might well exert parental rights and put me on a ship. I haven’t even told her about the grocery shop moving in here: she’d be appalled. Raise wrist to schnonk: smell the N, Olivia: be calm. After this coming April, Mother can’t do anything at all. I’ll be twenty-one and free. Utterly. To fall on my face as I see fit.

  I’m going to ask Mr Jabour what he thinks of all this mess, get myself a good dose of Levantine business wisdom. It’s time I asked him about work for Eoghan, too. Beyond time. The road through the arch is all but complete, and Eoghan’s been looking for a place, to no avail. Everyone he knows, at the workshops, and at the technical college, is keeping an eye out for him, and there’s just nothing out there. The unemployment figure is creeping ever further up to thirty percent, for God’s sake. But there must be something for Eoghan. If he can’t find something suitable in the metal trades, he can’t keep on with his apprenticeship, and if he can’t fi
nish that, I can’t have him. There’s a basic principle. And another: he won’t work for me; that’s just a silly stitching dream in denial of masculine pride. He won’t even let me measure him for a new coat. But Mr Jabour, on the other hand – he has his genie fingers in all sorts of pies. Mr Jabour is going to be terribly shocked when I unplink this news of boy. Barrister or boilermaker. Hm . . . I don’t know what it’s like to have a father that cares about such things. I think I’m about to find out. And I shall: stand beside my man, whatever the future brings, beginning now. This minute.

  But Mr Jabour isn’t here.

  ‘Hidee, Ol.’ Velma smiles and turns when she sees me in the sideboard mirror. So quiet in here she’s taken to spring-cleaning. She waves, dust cloth in one hand, stopper of the brass bottle in the other. The glass rubies and sapphires twinkle under the overhead chandelier but there’s no genie laughter. Only silence today.

  Yo

  ‘You go to Mrs Adams if I’m not back by six – right,’ I remind Ag this morning as I’m leaving. She gives me a look as if I’m babying her. She knows to go straight to Mrs Adams if ever I’m not home when I should be, but I remind her because something in me knows. I won’t be back by six today.

  ‘I’m sorry, lad, but we’ve taken it as far as we can go.’ It’s Mr Harrison that tells me when I get across to the shops at the end of the shift.

  Mr Adams stares into the heavy planer behind me: it’s out of a job too.

  I knew this was coming, but it doesn’t make the fact of it any easier to take. It’s a hammer blow to my guts. I tried to plan for this, I tried to think ahead. There’s just nothing I can do. There’s nowhere for me to go. Nothing. They’re only wanting qualified journeymen if they’re wanting anyone at all, and returned servicemen and married men first. It’s not a good time to be apprenticed to anything, not when you’re my age. I’ve said I’ll take kids’ wages. Everyone’s said no: the union won’t have it. Fuck the union. Fuck this.

  ‘Something will come up, Eoghan,’ Mr Adams says. Hold on, he’s saying. Don’t let them get to you. Well enough for him to say. He’s got work at Colgate, the soap factory; they’re expanding their operations and I can’t get in there even to sweep the floor. Tarz and Dolly are going to Glebe Island and Clarkie’s going back to the slip shops at Mort Bay, working on the steamers. How am I going to pay the rent next week? I’m already a week behind from the ten shilling pay cut last month. Sturgess will have it pounded out of me with a two by four and we’ll be on the street. I’ve already had to let the Gaslight account go, they cut it off yesterday, and coal’s that dear . . . Fuck that: how am I going to get Ag’s summer uniform – she’s still wearing winter’s and it’s getting too small for her. Fuck that: how am I going to feed us? The only dole I can get is for a single man and it’s not enough. The only work I can get for the dole is on a road gang, in camps that far west they might as well be in another country, one I can’t take a child to. What do I do? Cadge off Olivia – for the rent? Take another don’t-mention-it pound from Mr Adams? ‘Keep your head on,’ he tells me.

  But my head is already gone.

  What did I do wrong, Lord? What did I do? I just wanted to keep in work, keep a good home for me and my sister, give her a family. A life. Is it Olivia? Is that why I’m to be punished? It’s you who kept sending her to me. Testing me? Haven’t I passed that test? I haven’t touched her but to hold her hand for more than a year.

  Or is it just me? Useless, filthy O’Paddy. Should not have left Satan’s arsehole. Where I belong.

  ‘Eoghan, where are you going?’ Mr Adams yells after me.

  But I’m already gone.

  I go to the Rag and Famish, with every intention of getting more fucked up than I have ever been. Probably won’t take much, I don’t reckon, haven’t had a drink for almost two years. But I am going to have several now: see you in the morning. It’s half-past five in the afternoon at present, though, and I can’t get near the bar. I can’t see anyone in here I know, either. A fella near the door looks sideways at me, and I recognise him. I don’t know his name, but I know what he is: one of them New Guard standovers, this army of broke grocers and unemployed bank clerks that have set themselves up to pick fights with unionists in the name of the King – like those fellas that stopped us in the Domain that day, only now they’re getting organised: making a show of themselves in public parks, parading around with their straight-arm salutes and clicking their heels like the Girl Guides brigade they are. I see this establishment is packed with them, and there’s a celebration of some kind going on.

  Cheering.

  I want to kill someone.

  The celebrating is something to do with the elections that have gone on in Britain. The Labour Party there has gone down, in flames.

  ‘Lang will be next!’ they’re cheering.

  Why? I could laugh. The Langites have just crossed the floor of the Federal Parliament to vote with the Nationalists, to bring down Labor here next. Hang your hat on that for horseshit. One fascist is as good as another to a blind man, isn’t he?

  ‘God save the King!’

  ‘God smash Communism!’

  ‘God smash democracy!’

  These ones are lunatics. Olivia reckons that the Governor is more scared of this New Guard than he is of the Bank Robber. First rule of self-preservation: you should never pick a fight with a lunatic. But there doesn’t seem much left of me worth preserving right at this minute and the fella by the door is still looking at me.

  I say: ‘What are you looking at, Pommy faggot?’

  And then I run.

  Olivia

  ‘It all happened too quick for us,’ Mrs Adams is explaining to me in the courtyard of St Augustine’s. She is as daintily pretty as her husband is rough-hewn, but her face is scrunched hard now in anguish. ‘That Welfare woman came round on the Friday morning, to the school, and only because the teacher had had a bit of a worry for the child, that money might be scarce for them. She was only going to see what could be done to help, but then, by the evening, when Eoghan couldn’t be found, well, there was no choice for her but to take Agnes with her.’

  ‘Where?’ I whisper. I want to wail: But I found you a job! Or Velma did. The people who do something or other with the machine parts at her Eddie’s shirt factory will take him on, and if that doesn’t work out long-term, they’ve got connections at the woollen mills at Marrickville. I’m supposed to be surprising him with the news right here, right now, this Sunday. Bring him over for coffee in the afternoon, Velma conspired. Mum and Aunty Karm will go crazy.

  ‘That will be for the court to decide,’ Mr Adams says, for Mrs Adams has had to look away to dab at her tears. Over his shoulder I can see Mrs Buddle’s lace headscarf bowed, just in the church doors at the end of a row of nuns, all furiously praying. Too late. ‘The hearing will be Monday morning – tomorrow.’

  The hearing. As if Agnes were a criminal. She must be petrified. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘They wouldn’t even let me see her,’ Mrs Adams is openly weeping now.

  ‘See her where?’

  Mr Adams’s growl is forbidding and defeated at once: ‘In the shelter, at the court.’

  In children’s prison? Since Friday evening? I could cry too. But I am too shocked, and too angry – with myself. I was almost going to surprise him Thursday night with the news of the job, or the hope of it. Why didn’t I? Why didn’t I take the ferry over? I was trimming a raffia mid-brim with cellophane salad. What on earth for?

  ‘Hello, Miss Olivia,’ Kenny Adams chimes in brightly, shaking my hand. ‘How do you do?’

  ‘Hello, Kenny,’ I whisper my rage for every unjust thing.

  ‘It’s not likely they’ll let us have the child stay with us, we’ve already been told,’ Mr Adams says, his sadness as solid as the stone beneath our feet. ‘Welfare know . . . about . . .’ Kenny. Of course. Mr Adams is telling me it’s not
likely the court would let Agnes stay in a home that has a Kenny, with his outbursts, which, although I’ve never witnessed one, are apparently quite frightening, shouting and banging that can be heard up the length of their street, Eoghan has said.

  Oh Eoghan. Where are you? What’s happened to you?

  *

  Mr Jabour accompanies me, or rather I him, and we go in his brother George’s sparkling new Plymouth for extra gravitas, to the Children’s Court, in Albion Street, Surry Hills, a location most convenient to its purpose as it is the city’s pre-eminent centre of poverty and degradation. Mr Jabour sighs heavily as he stops the motor at the kerbside, before saying, as he and Mrs Jabour, and Glor, and Aunty Karma have all said to me a hundred times since midday yesterday: ‘You should have said something before this.’

  Yes. And so should Eoghan. How could he not have told me he’d got behind with the rent? The whole of Balmain knew, behind his back at least. Agnes’s lunch tin packed with only bread and dripping these past few months, since the last cut in his hours, which I also had no idea about. No idea things had got so desperate for him. I love a bit of bread and dripping but not every day. Mrs Hanrahan sneaking an extra apple for Agnes into Gladdy’s tin, not wanting to hurt his pride. What good is pride to us now? There should be a law against people concealing difficulties. Gloria almost had a heart attack and her baby at once: That little girl? That little girl is WHERE? She’s WHAT?

  Beyond the liver-brick edifice, the interior is dank and dark as a crypt, sending shiver after shiver through me. Poor Agnes, being hauled in here alone, to this place haunted by the worst of our inhumanity: that which we inflict upon the helpless.

  Mr Jabour is not so affected. He bowls directly up to the desk in the foyer: ‘Good morning, I am here for Agnes O’Keenan.’

  ‘Sir?’ the man at the desk looks up from some paperwork. ‘The court proceedings begin at ten o’clock.’ He glances over his shoulder at the wall clock: it’s a quarter to nine.